From Molecular Characterization to Molecular Manufacturing and Molecular Electronics

Abstract

Advances on the preparation techniques and on the fundamental properties of LB films allow organic materials to be transferred one after another from a water surface into solid substrates to form monolayers. Recent advances in designing supermoleculecular aggregates by manipulating biomolecules and monolayer packages has proven the feasibility to utilize LB in devices, justifying the attempt to apply the films of this type within present silicon technology for the production of bioelectronics devices. Recently, a step forward in real-time instrumentations was also realized. The atomic surface becomes visible through the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), while femto-second laser spectroscopy can follow the time evolution of chemical reaction kinetics. A major distinction of molecular nanotechnology from bulk semiconductor technology is the bottom-up approach of building devices from the atomic scale up. Steps towards molecular manufacturing and molecular electronic devices are presently being taken in several laboratories starting from the characterization via tunneling/atomic force microscopy and other molecular probes of both Langmuir-Blodgett and self-organizing monolayers containing properly engineered 2-D materials either organic or biological of desired semiconducting properties. The object of this presentation is to summarize our most recent developments in the characterization of polymers down to atomic resolution and to outline the molecular manufacturing and molecular electronics carried out in my laboratories.